The Bells

To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats On the moon!

O, from out the sounding cells,

What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!

How it dwells

On the Future! how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells,

Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,

Bells, bells, bells

To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells! 35

Hear the loud alarum bells-
Brazen bells!

What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night

How they scream out their affright!

Too much horrified to speak,

They can only shriek, shriek,

Out of tune,

In the clamorous appealing to the mercy of the

fire,

In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic

fire,

Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor,
Now-now to sit or never,

By the side of the pale-faced moon.

50

Oh, the bells, bells, bells!

What a tale their terror tells
Of Despair!

How they clang, and clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour

On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,

By the twanging,

And the clanging,

How the danger ebbs and flows:

Yet the ear distinctly tells,

In the jangling,

And the wrangling,

How the danger sinks and swells,

By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the

bells

Of the bells—

Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,

Bells, bells, bells

In the clamour and the clangour of the bells! 69

Hear the tolling of the bells—
Iron bells!

What a world of solemn thought their monody
compels !

In the silence of the night,

How we shiver with affright

At the melancholy menace of their tone!

For every sound that floats

From the rust within their throats

Is a groan.

The Bells

And the people-ah, the people—
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone,

And who, tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,

Feel a glory in so rolling

On the human heart a stoneThey are neither man nor woman— They are neither brute nor human— They are Ghouls:

And their king it is who tolls;

And he rolls, rolls, rolls,

Rolls

A pæan from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells

With the pean of the bells!
And he dances and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the pean of the bells-
Of the bells:

Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the throbbing of the bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells—
To the sobbing of the bells;
Keeping time, time, time,

As he knells, knells, knells,

In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells-

To the tolling of the bells,

Of the bells, bells, bells, bells

Bells, bells, bells

To the moaning and the groaning of the bells. 113

1849.

Edgar Allan Poe.

THE BELLS OF SHANDON

WITH deep affection

And recollection

I often think of

Those Shandon bells,
Whose sounds so wild would,
In the days of childhood,
Fling around my cradle

Their magic spells.

On this I ponder
Where'er I wander,

And thus grow fonder,

Sweet Cork, of thee;

With thy bells of Shandon,
That sound so grand on
The pleasant waters

Of the River Lee.

I've heard bells chiming
Full many a clime in,

Tolling sublime in

Cathedral shrine,

While at a glib rate

Brass tongues would vibrate

16

The Bells of Shandon
But all their music

Spoke naught like thine;
For memory dwelling
On each proud swelling
Of the belfry knelling

Its bold notes free,
Made the bells of Shandon
Sound far more grand on
The pleasant waters
Of the River Lee.